Poke War
by Micaiah
Summary: What happens when Dean Winchester joins Facebook? Tag to 10.07 inspired by conversations in 10.13.


**Tag to 10.07 inspired by conversations in 10.13.**

* * *

"God, I'm so tired of looking at this crap." Dean slammed his laptop shut. "I need a break. We still have any of that pie left from the other day?"

"Huh, what?" Sam glanced up from his own laptop. "Yeah, I think so."

"You seem awfully engrossed in something." Dean gave him an exaggerated grin. "Did you find some good porn?"

"It's called reading, Dean. You should try it sometime."

"I read."

"Your dating app doesn't count."

"That reminds me….." Dean pulled out his phone, scrolled through the apps and frowned in concentration.

"What are you doing?"

"Deleting that app…..or at least I think….yep, there. It's gone." Dean smiled in triumph and Sam smothered a grin. Dean was so smart but sometimes technology was really not his thing.

"I thought you liked that app."

"Nah. I mean, you were right. You never know when a Canadian trucker named Bruce is gonna show up…..or a demon." Dean sighed, leaning back in his chair. "What is it with us and demons anyway?"

"We're cursed."

"We're not cursed, Sammy. We just…..okay, maybe we're cursed." Dean opened his laptop again. "So, you've never tried a dating app?"

"Nope. My luck is bad enough already."

"So, no social media either?"

"Just Facebook."

"You have a Facebook?"

"Yeah. I've had it since Stanford."

"Really? Facebook has been around that long?"

"That really has been a long time, hasn't it?" But not long enough…..Sam didn't think it would ever be long enough for him not to miss Jess. "But yeah, Facebook started out with universities way before it became available to everyone else. I probably wouldn't have signed up if Jess hadn't kept bugging me about it."

"Do you still use it?"

"Yeah, actually I do. Not a lot, but there's a network of hunters so I'm friends with most of them. It's a way to keep in touch if we need to."

Dean frowned. "Why am I just now hearing about this?"

Sam shrugged. "It's never really came up and besides, you've never been interested in social media. You're anti-social, remember?"

"Whatever, dude."

Dean grew quiet as he became immersed in something on his laptop. Sam continued to search through the pages he'd found about the Mark of Cain. He wasn't going to rest until the Mark was removed from his brother's arm. His phone buzzed on the table beside him. He reached for it and grinned when he saw the notification.

"Really, Dean?"

"Hey, I can be social too. Now, be my friend, dammit."

Sam chuckled and accepted his brother's friend request on Facebook. "You gonna use the Impala67 pic as your profile pic?"

"I don't know…..can I pick up chicks on here?" Dean sounded hopeful.

Sam rolled his eyes. "You just deleted a dating app!"

"I'm just asking, Sam, but that's not why I joined Facebook."

"Oh, really? Then why did you?"

Sam's phone buzzed again.

"To annoy you."

"Dammit, Dean."

Sam opened his Facebook app and saw the message Dean had posted on his timeline: "_Hey, bro."_

"Dean, don't you think we have better things to do with our time?"

"Yes, I could be eating pie but this is more fun."

Sam huffed. "Well, while you're over there playing, I'll be over here researching…..you know, for a way to get that thing off your arm."

Dean managed to look slightly ashamed of himself for about two seconds before Sam's phone buzzed again and then his face split into a huge grin. Sam glanced at the notification: _Dean Winchester poked you_.

"Dean, am I gonna have to turn my notifications off because of you?"

"No, but you should do something about that one because it won't let me poke you again."

"Oh, for the love of….."

"Come on, Sammy." Dean gave his best attempt at pleading puppy dog eyes and Sam relented, opening the app and pressing the x next to poke button. He refused to poke back.

"Hey, Garth's on here!"

"I told you it was a network of hunters. Garth didn't really start using it much until lately. I think he just likes posting pictures of his wife."

"Yeah, there's only about a thousand of her on here."

Sam's phone buzzed again. _Dean Winchester poked you._

"Dude, would you stop?"

"Not until you poke me back."

"I'm not poking you back."

"Come on, Sammy. Just one time. You know you want to."

"Punch you….maybe. Poke you….no."

Suddenly Dean burst into laughter. "Dude, what the hell is this?"

Dean turned his laptop toward Sam and a blast from his past was staring at him from the screen. It was homecoming, the year he'd met Jess and somehow he'd managed to get caught up in the madness. The picture was of him, Jess and Brady, faces painted red and white, wearing their Stanford shirts and looking extremely proud of themselves.

"I'd forgotten about that," Sam said softly.

Dean studied his brother and then looked back at the picture. "Wait…..is that….?"

"Brady? Yeah."

"Son of a bitch."

Sam turned his attention back to the research at hand but his mind was still in the past. He knew he should probably delete the pictures from his Facebook. He'd thought about doing so on many different occasions…...especially the ones of Brady…..but Jess was in most of those pictures and deleting them felt like he was trying to erase her from his life and he just couldn't do it. She was a part of him that he could never let go. She'd died because of him. He couldn't just delete her pictures and pretend she'd never existed.

Sam's phone buzzed on the table beside him and he glared at his brother but Dean wasn't paying attention. Sam glanced at the notification and opened his Facebook app. Underneath the picture of him, Jess and Brady, Dean had written: _Sammy, I'm so sorry. _Sam clicked "like" underneath the comment and closed the app.

Dean stood up and stretched. "Dude, you want some pie? I'm gonna go grab me a piece."

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks."

Dean retreated to the kitchen and Sam watched him go. Dean had told Cole he was past saving and Sam couldn't get those words out of his head or the look of his brother's face when he'd said them. How could Dean think that about himself? As annoying as he could sometimes be, Dean was full of life, full of humor and even sometimes full of shit but Sam would never give up on him.

Sam's phone buzzed again. He sighed and opened his Facebook app. "DEAN!"

Dean sauntered in from the kitchen, forking pie into his mouth, grinning from ear to ear. "What?"

"Why did you just tag me in twenty pictures of your damn pie?"

Dean balanced his plate in one hand, whipped out his phone with the other and snapped a quick picture of his brother. "So, I could get this awesome picture of your bitchface. You need a new profile pic."

"Dean, do not make me unfriend you!"

Dean's face was crestfallen. "You can do that?"

"Yes, I can do that!"

"Dude, you wouldn't unfriend your own brother…..would you?"

Dean said it jokingly but there was an undertone of desperation in the question...as if Sam unfriending him on Facebook would be the worst thing in the world. Though he'd never admit it, Dean's insecurities were showing but Sam knew he was the reason for those insecurities in the first place. He'd let Dean down more times than he could count. Never again.

"No, I'm not going to unfriend you, Dean."

Dean was visibly relieved as he reclaimed the chair in front of his laptop, scarfing down the rest of the pie while intently studying his computer screen.

"Hey, I have three friends now!" Dean's face was contemplative. "That's more than I have in real life."

Sam would've laughed if it wasn't such a hard truth. All their friends ended up dead, a fact that haunted them both every day.

"Maybe you can poke one of them now instead of me." Sam suggested.

"I can't poke you anymore because, as Facebook keeps telling me, you haven't responded to my last poke."

Sam snorted, realizing Dean's intense focus for the past few minutes had been spent on trying to figure out how to poke him again. He sighed, opened the app and clicked the x next to Dean's last poke. Sooner or later it would get old but until then, might as well let Dean have some fun. It only took a matter of seconds before Sam's phone buzzed again. _Dean Winchester poked you._

Sam opened the app, his finger hesitating between the x and the poke button. _Oh, what the hell._

Dean's phone buzzed and he reached for it, obviously expecting anything except a poke from his brother. When he read the notification, his face lit up with delight and Sam smiled.

"Dude, it's on now!"

Sam's phone buzzed again. _Dean Winchester poked you._

_Oh, God, what have I done?_

But when Dean smiled at him, he knew exactly what he'd done. Seeing his brother happy was everything…..even if it meant enduring a Facebook poke war.

* * *

**So, I have to make a confession. I don't think I'd ever poked anyone on Facebook until I got the idea for this fic. I had to research the whole poking thing which resulted in some hilarious tweets with some of my friends. :)**

**Also, I had already written a tag to 10.07 called _A Winchester Thanksgiving_ and this is actually a tag to that. That's where the leftover pie came from. :)**

**Thanks for reading! Comments are always welcome and greatly appreciated!**


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